samedi 29 mai 2010

Just had 4 hours of conversation practice with a new French friend - yay! OK it was probably 2 hours given at least half the time we were speaking English...

I was browsing Gumtree one day for things to buy or sell. I've been using it more than eBay to sell things because it's just so much easier, and it's free! It's like the Craigslist or Kijiji of Australia.

Anyway, every now and then for fun I typed in "French" to see what comes up. There are a lot of people offering French lessons, or French backpackers wanting free rides across Australia, or perhaps someone selling French textbooks. I even found a French photographer who is offering to take photos in his studio for a bargain price. But anyway, I managed to find a language partner! When I wasn't even looking for one.

If this isn't the Law of Attraction thing then I don't know what is. Ever since my French friend went back to France I've been a little sad but also I've now got noone to practise with on a regular basis. So I managed to find this guy's ad online and we start emailing back and forth and I had to keep postponing our meetings because I've been since for what seems like forever now...

So 1) I found him at the exact right time I needed a new language exchange partner
2) The weirdest thing is that he has almost the exact same name as my other French friend! That is the freakiest thing ever. They have the same first name and their last name is almost identical too.

How freaky is that?

Anyway, we had a great time just talking about random stuff. It seemed that my French was better than his English which was a weird feeling because my other friend had perfect English and I never taught him anything much, he was doing all the 'teaching' although I loathe to call it that because it was more like two friends talking and having fun.

But all in all I think it went well. I enjoy sharing my knowledge on random stuff although there are some things I just don't know.

He asked me to explain Australia's political system to him (in French) and this was very hard because I have no interest in politics. When I visited the parliament house in Canberra in April they were giving free talks/guides and it was somewhat interesting but I can hardly remember any of it.

Another question he asked me which had me totally stumped and even after Googling I still can't find the answer. Perhaps someone can enlighten me? He asked me if one can do the working holiday visa (WHV) in more than one country. I couldn't find any information about this. Am I not looking hard enough? Could a French person do, say, 1 year in Australia, 1 year in the UK, 1 year in Canada, 1 year in Japan, etc? (assuming they still fit the age requirements).

I know you can do 2 stints in Australia back to back (so 2 years in total) if you work at least 3 months WOOFing (fruit picking).

Hopefully this can be a regular thing for us (to learn our 2 languages) as I need to keep practising my French conversation.